It's kind of a shrug. I mean, at this point, we know what to expect from Miller, and we know that he's going to try to provoke people via reactionary politics and then back away from it with a protective layer of irony. So yeah, this is that. There are a few nice pits of old-school Miller design, but it's not a very well-made comic, either.

This latest thing - where Miller shows just what a shell-shocked, overcompensating pussy he is by taking the Occupy protestors to task for caring about anything other than the threat of Terrorism - puts Miller in Orson Scott Card and Victoria Jackson territory for me. Somewhere along the line, the part of his brain that could have deconstructed wartime propaganda simply shut down. They're out to get us because they're Evil, and we're Good, and menacing Good is what Evil does. That's all he needs to know.

I used to give Miller the benefit of the doubt for the propagandist overtones of 300, in much the same way that I gave Mel Gibson the benefit of the doubt for The Passion of The Christ. Miller's post on the Occupy movement and his horrible Holy Terror novel are what Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic rant to the LAPD was to me; the line where I stop supporting the artist's work, and feel like an ass for having ever supported his work.

I'm an honest to god combat veteran, and I wouldn't be patriotic enough for Miller, because I'm not scared shitless of the brown skinned people outside my door.

I kinda feel embarrassed now for praising him on guy.com. Yes, even for Holy Terror, which I went into knowing the politics were going to be gabble-gabble, and just sort of enjoyed it on the level of expression. I laughed through a lot of it. It's like watching a two-year-old gorge himself on candy until he shits his pants, or a dog licking his balls and getting a little too much into it. It's pure unmediated id; it's like better-drawn Jack Chick. Or better-designed, anyway. I know a lot of folks take issue with what his drawing style has evolved/devolved into, but I like the play of blacks and whites, and his apparent ass fetish and big-hands-big-feet fetish, which seem to have started halfway into his Sin City run, amuse me. Then again I'm also the guy who finds Ditko's wonky-ass objectivist comics fascinating.

I kinda feel embarrassed now for praising him on guy.com. Yes, even for Holy Terror, which I went into knowing the politics were going to be gabble-gabble, and just sort of enjoyed it on the level of expression. I laughed through a lot of it. It's like watching a two-year-old gorge himself on candy until he shits his pants, or a dog licking his balls and getting a little too much into it. It's pure unmediated id; it's like better-drawn Jack Chick. Or better-designed, anyway. I know a lot of folks take issue with what his drawing style has evolved/devolved into, but I like the play of blacks and whites, and his apparent ass fetish and big-hands-big-feet fetish, which seem to have started halfway into his Sin City run, amuse me. Then again I'm also the guy who finds Ditko's wonky-ass objectivist comics fascinating.

Cerebus contains long, sustained stretches of master-class cartooning. Even when he went off the deep end, it was like his hand wouldn't let his brain fuck up the achievement entirely.

He has actually been known to get along with, be perfectly pleasant to, and even work with women, even now. A woman runs his official fan club. I think it's stupid that (A) his distrust of women — apparently based in part on his then-wife and mother committing him after he freaked out on acid, and in part on horror stories about male friends getting taken for everything in divorce — hardened into dogma and (B) so much of it infected a perfectly fine comic. I also think that he just sort of decided he didn't want women in his life in an intimate sense any more, and that partly it was a revulsion brought about by excessive womanizing and dope-smoking in the '80s. So, never one to go halfway on anything, he did a complete 180 and became this religious ascetic. Yet he doesn't go around barking at women like a loon or something.

Getting back to your basic question: his view of women is...unique. I don't share it.

It's one thing if he wants to say that he's done with romance with women because he doesn't like what it turns him into, it takes his energy away from his work, whatever. That's at least plausible. It's another thing to say that men are the creative Light and women are the Void seeking to leech off of men. It smacks a little too much of General Jack D. Ripper denying women his essence.

All the Chuck Taylors in the world couldn't get me to read that - okay, if The Fixer had been a giant sentient pair of Chuck Taylors I could at least appreciate as "Fun" crazy. But this shit is "Evil, Stupid" crazy.

I guess he sees it as a form of healthy provocation - but he's just so fucking out of touch with reality. It's like getting into an argument with your figurative Grandad. All his reference points and arguments were proven invalid decades ago.

Christ Jesus, I certainly wouldn't recommend spending the $29.95 or whatever for it. Get it through the library, flip through it for 15 minutes (that's about how long it takes to read), laugh at it, move on.

Bottom line, Miller and Sim and whoever else can say what they want. I don't have to work for 'em, I don't have to live with 'em, I don't have to fuck 'em, and I'm not gonna vote 'em into public office.

Miller's work at this point is weird-ass naive art or something. It's actually more interesting to me than work that's 100% simpatico with my political views. That's why I enjoy later-period crazy-old-man Ditko.

Funny thing is, the ultimate bad guy supplying the terrorists in Holy Terror, if I recall correctly, is an Irish guy.

Anyway, people have been pointing out this page and Give Me Liberty as proof that Miller didn't always feel this way, but you don't even have to go back that far; in the first issue of Dark Knight Strikes Again you have Batman beating the shit out of Luthor, destroying all his files on everyone, and actually saying "Striking terror. Best part of the job." Of course, that issue was in the can before 9/11.

The Irish guy isn't the big boss, he's the bomb-maker. He's there because Miller doesn't want to portray Muslims as being capable of constructing sophisticated technology (or giving them personalities, apparently). The big boss is that guy with no face who was going to be Bin Laden before Bin Laden got plugged in real life, and who is now revealed to be a mastermind behind a vast conspiracy, because that's the only way to keep the fear of Muslims alive in Miller's mind.

I tend to agree people get too worked up about people like Miller and Sim--they're obviously harmless. Inasmuch as they affect the larger culture it's just to remind people how deeply crazy and detached from reality reactionaries tend to be, which is actually a good thing--compare that with, say, some of the loonier Republican candidates who know they have to appear sensible to win over a mass audience.

Well, Frank Miller is someone whose work I’ve barely looked at for the past twenty years. I thought the Sin City stuff was unreconstructed misogyny, 300 appeared to be wildly ahistoric, homophobic and just completely misguided. I think that there has probably been a rather unpleasant sensibility apparent in Frank Miller’s work for quite a long time. Since I don’t have anything to do with the comics industry, I don’t have anything to do with the people in it. I heard about the latest outpourings regarding the Occupy movement. It’s about what I’d expect from him. It’s always seemed to me that the majority of the comics field, if you had to place them politically, you’d have to say centre-right. That would be as far towards the liberal end of the spectrum as they would go. I’ve never been in any way, I don’t even know if I’m centre-left. I’ve been outspoken about that since the beginning of my career. So yes I think it would be fair to say that me and Frank Miller have diametrically opposing views upon all sorts of things, but certainly upon the Occupy movement.

As far as I can see, the Occupy movement is just ordinary people reclaiming rights which should always have been theirs. I can’t think of any reason why as a population we should be expected to stand by and see a gross reduction in the living standards of ourselves and our kids, possibly for generations, when the people who have got us into this have been rewarded for it; they’ve certainly not been punished in any way because they’re too big to fail. I think that the Occupy movement is, in one sense, the public saying that they should be the ones to decide who’s too big to fail. It’s a completely justified howl of moral outrage and it seems to be handled in a very intelligent, non-violent way, which is probably another reason why Frank Miller would be less than pleased with it. I’m sure if it had been a bunch of young, sociopathic vigilantes with Batman make-up on their faces, he’d be more in favour of it. We would definitely have to agree to differ on that one.

The interview quoted above is on Bleeding Cool News now, but was originally posted here.Edited by Reasor - 12/4/11 at 7:15am

I got Holy Terror off of Amazon, it arrived last week, but I barely read it friday night. It's nothing that's got me pissed off. The visuals are typical Miller, and it does come off as pretty rah rah. I think I spent too much on it at 15 bucks, but I don't regret buying it. Only thing I wish, was that it actually had Batman and Catwoman.

Well, Frank Miller is someone whose work I’ve barely looked at for the past twenty years. I thought the Sin City stuff was unreconstructed misogyny, 300 appeared to be wildly ahistoric, homophobic and just completely misguided. I think that there has probably been a rather unpleasant sensibility apparent in Frank Miller’s work for quite a long time. Since I don’t have anything to do with the comics industry, I don’t have anything to do with the people in it. I heard about the latest outpourings regarding the Occupy movement. It’s about what I’d expect from him. It’s always seemed to me that the majority of the comics field, if you had to place them politically, you’d have to say centre-right. That would be as far towards the liberal end of the spectrum as they would go. I’ve never been in any way, I don’t even know if I’m centre-left. I’ve been outspoken about that since the beginning of my career. So yes I think it would be fair to say that me and Frank Miller have diametrically opposing views upon all sorts of things, but certainly upon the Occupy movement.

As far as I can see, the Occupy movement is just ordinary people reclaiming rights which should always have been theirs. I can’t think of any reason why as a population we should be expected to stand by and see a gross reduction in the living standards of ourselves and our kids, possibly for generations, when the people who have got us into this have been rewarded for it; they’ve certainly not been punished in any way because they’re too big to fail. I think that the Occupy movement is, in one sense, the public saying that they should be the ones to decide who’s too big to fail. It’s a completely justified howl of moral outrage and it seems to be handled in a very intelligent, non-violent way, which is probably another reason why Frank Miller would be less than pleased with it. I’m sure if it had been a bunch of young, sociopathic vigilantes with Batman make-up on their faces, he’d be more in favour of it. We would definitely have to agree to differ on that one.

The interview quoted above is on Bleeding Cool News now, but was originally posted here.Edited by Reasor - Today at 7:15 am

I was actually going to bump this thread with this information later tonight. Does anyone know when exactly the love affair between these two ended? I know they were very supportive of each others work for most of the 80's. Seems they had a bit of a falling out in the early 90's I guess.

Just read this. Thought it was rubbish. Thin, incomprehensible story. Same can be said for most of the art. Miller's style remains captivating at times, but in general panels were a muddled mess and I struggled to figure out what was supposed to be going on. Nothing profound or interesting to say. It all comes off as a bit hysterical, and the shades of Batman ended up detracting from the story rather than adding to it. It felt unoriginal, tired. One of the worst comics I've read recently. Moore was right to call Miller to the mat.